Dental implants are used in place of missing, or extracted, teeth, whether due to accident or disease, and have the ability to perform the functions of natural teeth. A dental implant is used as an artificial root (support), with an artificial crown (prosthesis) placed on the artificial root after integration with the jawbone. An abutment serves as a spacer between the support and the prosthesis, with the implant serving as the base support for the abutment and final prosthesis in an attempt to restore normal oral function. Alternatively, the prosthesis may be secured directly to the support without utilizing a spacer.
Generally, an implant is surgically placed in a patient's jaw and becomes integrated with the bone. The implant is generally screwed and/or pressed into a hole drilled in the bone and tissue. The surface of the implant has characteristics that aid in the process of osseointegration. Osseointegration is the process of the bone healing and actually growing up to and locking into the microscopic and macroscopic irregularities of the implant placed in the bone. Typically, once the implant is placed in the bone, full integration of the bone with the jaw bone is required prior to mounting the abutment and prosthesis. The upper end of the implant is typically shaped to receive and secure the abutment in a number of various fashions that are well known in the art, such as that disclosed by Hansson, U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,564.
Implants can be classified according to the location of the implant, such as “intra-osseous,” or their shapes, such as “threaded implant.” A self-tapping implant is one that can be threaded into a pre-drilled hole in a jawbone without pre-tapping the hole. The apical end portion of the implant taps the hole as the implant is simultaneously rotated and pressed into the hole in the jaw bone.
Various problems exist with the present generation of implant bodies utilized by dentists and surgeons. For one, typical implants require a number of parts. For example, Milne, Pub. No. US 2004/0170947, discusses the common implant comprising a screw-type implant body, an abutment attached to a collar portion of the implant body, and a crown cemented to the abutment. As noted in Choi et al., Pub. No. US 2004/0219488, a multitude of parts can cause slack in the implant structure as a whole. FIG. 1 of Choi et al. depicts a conventional implant comprising numerous separate parts.
Additionally, problems sometimes occur with osseointegration around the collar portion of the implant. For example, Hansson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,838, discusses the problem stemming from the typically smooth surface of the collar portion in relation to osseointegration of the cortical bone tissue, the strongest part of the bone tissue. Bone tissue sometimes degenerates in the area around a smooth collar portion.
Another problem relates to the period of time required for the bone to bond sufficiently with the implant such that the artificial crown can be mounted and the implant may be used to fully restore oral function. It usually takes approximately 3 to 6 months for the bone to bond sufficiently with the implant to allow mounting the abutment. The need exists for an implant creating a sufficiently strong support structure to allow an abutment and/or prosthesis to be attached to the implant body without waiting for osseointegration to take effect. Thus, an implant structure is needed that creates a higher level of stability by securing itself to the jawbone through its own characteristics immediately, with later osseointegration providing further stability assurance.
Prior methods of surgically placing an implant typically include first cutting a flap in the gum to reveal the jaw bone. The next typical step involves drilling a hole in the jaw bone at the desired implant location, and then inserting the implant and repairing the gum. Because an unnecessarily large portion of the bone is exposed to air, it may cause the bone to recede, sometimes as much as one to two millimeters, which in turn has a negative effect.